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May 27, 2026With the plethora of online platforms offering English language lessons to learners and teaching positions to English teachers and tutors, it is difficult to know which online teaching companies are legit.
We’re going to get to the bottom of this by asking those who know best: the teachers themselves.
In this series, we’ll talk to teachers currently teaching online in 2026 and ask them the important questions.
Hi, I’m Kim! I’m a South-African-based educator with an honours degree in Psychology, a TEFL qualification, and a diploma in Digital Marketing. I have several years of experience teaching in-person and online, including on Palfish. So if you’re wondering Does Palfish hire South Africans? – here’s the proof!
I started teaching online in 2015 when the industry was new, and opportunities were plentiful. TEFL has taken me all over the world, and I lived abroad for six years.
My journey with Palfish came at a time when I was looking to supplement my income. I was looking for a higher hourly rate, more flexibility and an on-the-go app that would allow me to teach from anywhere in the world.
Palfish appealed to me because of its mobile-friendly platform, making it easy to teach from any location at any time of the day. Palfish allows teachers to set their own schedules and doesn’t require them to commit to a mandatory set of hours (unless you’re enrolled in the Palfish Official Kids Course).
I particularly found the use of a mobile application quite intriguing since I travel a lot and enjoy having flexibility about where I teach. For example, if I had an extra hour or two to spare, I could just log into the app, go online, and have access to students right there and then.
I taught on the Palfish app for approximately three years. My class formats alternated between fixed regular students and ad hoc students that would call in on the go.
Most of the students on Palfish are aged between 3 to 12 years, making this an ideal platform for teachers that thrive in online TEFL classes for Young Learners.
The platform offers Free Talk sessions where students can call in and have general unstructured conversation English lessons with you. These classes tend to appeal to older students such as teenagers or adults.
Read more: 6 Differences Between Teaching Adults And Young Learners
On the whole, though, I’d say that the app itself caters predominately to Young Learners, requiring you to use energetic, prop-based, engaging teaching methods.
As a South African, getting approved on the Palfish app was quite tricky as Palfish does have a preference for native English teachers from the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.
I got quite lucky as I managed to get into their Young Learner programme due to my residence in Europe and my neutral accent. For most South Africans, however, the process is not as straightforward.
This doesn’t mean that Palfish is completely off the cards, but it does mean you’ll most likely only work as a Free Talk session teacher and won’t be approved for their exclusive Palfish Official Kids Course, which has the benefit of fixed hours and puts you in a greater position to earn a steady income.
In addition, some of the basic requirements for the Palfish Official Kids Course are that you:
✅ Have prior experience in teaching kids English as a second language
✅ Have a neutral and clear accent
✅ Have a teaching certificate of at least 120-hours (like a TEFL)
✅ Can be online for a minimum of 10 hours a week (between 6pm – 9pm Beijing time)
✅ Have a good teaching setup (good lighting, an office, a headset, and an HD webcam)
✅ Pass a demo interview
⭐ Good to know:
In terms of the app itself, I found the Palfish app quite user-friendly. The sign-up process was relatively straightforward.
All you need to do is:
For Free Talk classes, it can take up to two business days to be approved on the platform, whereas for the Palfish Official Kids Course programme it can take up to two to four days for the initial profile verification, and then another couple of days for the completion of your demo interview and feedback.
It’s important to keep in mind that getting your first group of regular students can be slow at the beginning, taking anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. The quality and standout features of your teaching profile will be what sets you apart from other teachers on the platform, so put in the effort, and you’ll have students in no time!
The drawback for many teachers when it comes down to the Palfish app is that students book teachers. It’s not the company itself that allocates students to teachers.
This means that you:
On top of that, bookings are not guaranteed.
When it comes to payment structure, teachers will be pleased to know that Palfish offers a competitive hourly rate. Teachers signed up for Free Talk sessions have the benefit of setting their own rates which can range anywhere between $10 – $25 an hour.
Bear in mind that teachers with a more affordable hourly rate will most likely be in greater demand.
For the Official Kids Course program, Palfish offers a tiered system with a base rate of $10 – $12 a lesson, and additional bonuses that are influenced by your ratings, attendance, punctuality and student conversions. This means that you can earn anywhere between $10 to even $22 an hour.
Payments are usually made through Payoneer or bank transfer, and are made promptly between the 3rd and the 7th of every month for the work done in the previous month. I have personally never had issues with payment delays on the Palfish app but I will recommend teachers to either have a working Payoneer account or a bank account that can receive US dollars.
The great aspect of Palfish, especially if you are a great teacher, is that it rewards good performance and you can quickly hike up your teacher ranking if you put in a consistent effort towards delivering engaging classes.
If you are successful in being recruited as a teacher on the app, a typical day would be setting your status on the app as ‘online,’ and checking your schedule for the day.
Students on Palfish can book and cancel classes with you 24 hours in advance. It’s always a good idea to check your schedule at least 25 minutes before your class starts. Most of the OKC classes will come with pre-made lesson materials and a curriculum to follow which makes the process a lot more straightforward.
With Free Talk sessions, however, the lessons are more unstructured and you have to be prepared to teach any level at any time. I prepare myself for this by having a set of conversation starters and level-appropriate lesson plans on hand in case I have a last-minute Free Talk session with a student and need to improvise on the go.
Another tip I give to new teachers is to gauge your capacity to do back-to-back classes. Burnout is real and teaching children requires a high level of energy, attention and patience. When setting up your schedule, make sure that it’s realistic with what you are capable of doing and do not overstretch your working hours as this is not always sustainable long-term.
Read more: Self-Care And The TEFL Teacher: How To Avoid Teacher Burnout
Most of the students you’ll meet on Palfish are from mainland China and are between the age of 3 to 15 years, meaning that your classes have to be engaging, creative and appeal to a young audience.
Young learners have a short attention span and perform best when there is positive reinforcement. Teachers should therefore be prepared to optimise lesson plans, bring props and let their personality shine – your students picked you for a reason after all!
Most of your classes will be 1-on-1 sessions and so you will really have the opportunity to build rapport in your lessons.
After classes, all teachers are required to submit a feedback report that must be submitted within 12 hours of the class finish time. For trial classes, the feedback report form will appear immediately but for general lessons teachers will have to navigate to the report section of the app to fill in their feedback reports. No report = no pay, so be sure to remember.
Some important tips for student feedback are:
✅ Be specific and personalise your feedback so that parents and students can see you genuinely understand their needs.
✅ Be timely and ensure that you fill out your reports before the 12-hour deadline.
✅ Use feedback to build your relationship with the student and their parents. In the app you can also send a personalised message to your students where you can compliment them for their great performance in class and remind them to give you a rating and view their feedback report.
As with any digital roles, technical issues do happen from time to time. As a South African, I am sometimes faced with loadshedding – where we experience periods without electricity. In these circumstances it’s recommended to have a backup UPS to keep your wifi router going and your phone battery supply on. If you aren’t teaching from home it’s equally important to ensure that you have a steady source of electricity and wifi supply.
Palfish has a strict policy against teachers who are no-shows or late for their classes with a ‘3-strikes and you’re out’ policy, so make sure you will have no interruptions to your classes when committing to a schedule.
Although Palfish has strict requirements for what they expect from their teachers in terms of performance and punctuality, the platform does offer a wealth of resources to support their teachers such as training and mentorship, lesson materials, a teacher community, administrative assistance, and even a referral bonus if you refer a teacher and they are approved to teach on the platform. The app developers also make regular updates to the app so that you and your students can have the best user experience at all times.
Can you make a living on Palfish?
Overall, Palfish is a great app to build an additional source of income and offers access to a broad range of students across mainland China.
However due to the competitiveness of the market and the large number of teachers using the application today, I would suggest that it be used to supplement an existing income. Like with any freelance work or project, there can be fluctuations and so it would be wise to not put all your eggs in one basket.
Although Palfish boasts a user-friendly app and access to a wide range of students, relying on Palfish as a sole source of income is not advised since bookings are not guaranteed and can fluctuate due to supply and demand.
I’d definitely recommend the Palfish teaching platform if you are looking for a side hustle and a mobile-app-based teaching platform that gives you flexibility and access to students across mainland China.
Compared to other companies, Palfish offers a competitive rate and an option to sign up to a fixed schedule or flexible schedule – you can decide what works best for you.
Last but not least, your success on the platform is really up to you and how well you are able to market yourself and retain students.
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